500 Salads: 500 Full-Color, Step-By-Step Salad Recipes From Cold to Hot, Side Salads to Main Meal Salads (The 500 Series) (500 Series Cookbooks) Hardcover – January 15, 2010

I love this book. It has a lot of great salad recipes and quite a variety. Creat ideas.

First, let me point out that this is a SMALL cookbook despite the 500 recipes -- it's roughly 6 inches tall by 6 inches wide. While "cute" in size, it's not what I had expected (yes, I should have read the description!).The book gives me a good starting point for deciding what to make for our family meals (such as the lentil salad), but then I must (absolutely MUST) modify. As is, the recipes are a little lack luster in flavor. For example, I've substituted olive oil where the recipe calls for canola oil. Other examples: adding fresh garlic, increasing amount of lemon or apple cider vinegar, etc.My criticism: while there are 500 recipes in the book, only about 1/4 of them are original or fresh. Let me explain: the book is divided into chapter with each recipe on a page. At the end of the chapter, that same recipe is used as the base and 4 variations are provided. The variations are rather lame and anyone who spends time in the kitchen would be able to think of most of these on his/her own.

The 500 salads provides 125 recipes for a variety of salads from everyday to exotic variations. Each of the 125 recipes has four minor variations that tweak the item into a different version by adding a new flavor profile. Like all of the books in the series this provides excellent recipes that are customizable so if you are familiar with flavors it Is easy to create your own variation. This book offers everything from side and appetizer salads to full meal salads from a variety of regions around the country with the biggest concentration being Asian. Very well done and for those looking for variety in salad you cannot go wrong.

First, let me state (as some others have stated) this does NOT have 500 salads. There are less than 100 basic salads with lots of variations. It is certainly not "the only salad compendium you'll ever need). That is a gross misstatement.Second, it is a awkward size for a book self.Third, there is very little unusal or innovative recipes. I suppose if you are brand new to making salad, this would be a decent book to start with, but I think there are better. Lots of these recipes are easily available in other free resources. I marked very few recipes for further review.Fourth, the layout is annoying. The variations are at the end of a section instead of next to the basic recipe. I was constantly flipping back and forth to look at the basic recipe and read the variations to see if I liked any of them. I hate cooking while trying to go back and forth between pages like this.I bought "Super Salads" by Readers Digest as the same time. I was startled to find "500 salads" had almost the same recipes. However "Super Salads" goes beyone "500 Salads" with variety and interest. If you are going to get a good book for salads, I would say buy "Super Salads" instead.

I gave this book to my girlfriend as one of her Christmas gifts, and we absolutely love it. The first 5 days of owning the book, we made 5 delicious salads. Having the pictures next to the recipes is truly motivating to make a salad that looks (and hopefully tastes) as good as you'd imagine.

Very interesting, good pictures and easy to understand.Ready to prepare good salads, 500 Saladas book has a lot of recepis , it;s a nice book.

I really liked this book lots of great ideas. I just wish it had more pictures. I started making salads as soon as i got it.

Lots of good to use menus. Not difficult to follow, something for everyone.